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When Does Maturity Set In?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the some-people-never-get-there dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Two Dartmouth researchers claim that they are one step closer to discovering at what age human maturity sets in. From the article: 'For the study, Baird and graduate student Craig Bennett looked at the brains of nineteen 18-year-old Dartmouth students who had moved more than 100 miles to attend college. A control group of 17 older students, ranging in age from 25 to 35, were also studied for comparison. The results indicate that significant changes took place in the brains of these individuals. The changes were localized to regions of the brain known to integrate emotion and cognition. Specifically, these are areas that take information from our current body state and apply it for use in navigating the world.'"

3 of 300 comments (clear)

  1. The problem with this post by museumpeace · · Score: 5, Informative
    is that NONE of us can RTFA. All that is posted here is the write-up by a Dartmouth PR person. The link to the journal article hits a roadblock unless you can toss it a Wiley Interscience license cookie...you may be lucky enough to be near a university library..you probably aren't. When I submitted this to the Agonist.org yesterday, I had such access. The paper is long, spends 2/3 of its pages clarifying and justifying its particular use of the somewhat controversialVBM technique and otherwise qualifying its results. The authors are fairly up front about distancing their work from claiming a universal result...how "average" could your findings be based only on 19 Dartmouth freshmen. [did they control for alcohol use?].

    Even with all the disclaimers, they had two supportable contentions:
    1. whatever change it is,[myelination was their pick] higly localized changes in brain areas that integrate emotion and decision ARE changeing.
    2. their data do little to pick apart the nature vs nurture issues that may rule such changes...only supporting the conclusion that at 18 something is still rewiring your brain.
    --
    SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
  2. I am the first author by benntop · · Score: 5, Informative

    It is good to see a lot of thoughtful comments here regarding the paper.

    If you have any questions for me specifically then please reply to this post and I will try to answer as directly as I can.

    Best,
    ~Craig

    1. Re:I am the first author by benntop · · Score: 5, Informative

      The linked Slashdot article is just the College Relations department press release. You can look at the full prepress PDF at the following address:

      http://www.theteenbrain.com/about/publications/pdf s/2005-Bennett-VBM.pdf